Samoa’s Po­lice com­mis­sioner faces di­vided Po­lice force

Apia: Samoa’s Po­lice Com­mis­sioner says if there are mem­bers of the force dis­sat­is­fied with his lead­er­ship, they should look for an­other ca­reer. Fuiavailili Egon Keil has been charged with one count each of wrong­ful ar­rest, per­jury, dis­or­derly con­duct, and pro­vid­ing a false state­ment to the Om­buds­man. But those charges were on Fri­day with­drawn for in­suf­fi­cient ev­i­dence. Fuiavailili said he was happy the case was over and he can re­turn to work. But he faces a di­vided Po­lice force, with more than 40 of­fi­cers re­cently sign­ing a pe­ti­tion of no con­fi­dence against him. But the com­mis­sioner said that was just re­sis­tance to his re­form agenda. “[They’re] not my rules, not my laws, I’m just im­ple­ment­ing what should have been done a long time ago, and there is a few - not the whole or­gan­i­sa­tion - that are re­sis­tant to that change and I’m hold­ing them ac­count­able to what they should do in the first place,” he said. “So here I am im­ple­ment­ing these things, and that is a blow­back.” RNZI